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Much Ado About Francis: The Challenge of the Pope in a Cynical Age

Christopher BrittainABC RELIGION AND ETHICS 2 JUN 2014

Can a charismatic leader successfully challenge the rigidity of long-standing rules and social orderings, be they those of the Catholic Church, secular moral codes or established political divisions?

CAN A CHARISMATIC LEADER SUCCESSFULLY CHALLENGE THE RIGIDITY OF LONG-STANDING RULES AND SOCIAL ORDERINGS, BE THEY THOSE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, SECULAR MORAL CODES OR ESTABLISHED POLITICAL DIVISIONS?CREDIT: NENEO / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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Ever since Pope Francis replied “Who am I to judge?” in response to a question by an Italian journalist about homosexuality, the process of judging the Pope himself began in earnest.

Since his election almost fifteen months ago, the Pope has largely enjoyed very favourable media attention. Recently, however, criticism has been building – of his planned meeting with victims of sexual abuse by clergy; of his permitting the disciplining of liberal American nuns; and of his handling of avisit to the Holy Land. One wonders whether, in this increasingly negative context, Pope Francis has of late experienced moments of self-examination such as those depicted in Nanni Moretti’s film Habemus Papam.

At the beginning of Moretti’s film, as the camera moves across the faces of the leading candidates during the Conclave voting, we hear each of them praying inwardly, “Not me, Lord, please!” When a dark-horse candidate, Cardinal Melville (Michel Piccoli), is unexpectedly elected Pope, he soon suffers a panic attack just prior to being presented to the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square. As the College of Cardinals tries to mask the situation from the public, Piccoli’s character meets with a therapist to explore why it is he considers himself unable to face the demands of the papacy. To his brother Cardinals, he can only whimper, “Help me. I can’t do this.”

The initial response to the election of Francis was, of course, largely very positive. The warmth of his personality and the humble way he approached his audiences, were described as a breath of fresh air. An Italian sociological study and another survey in the UK suggest that Catholic congregations in those countries have experienced increased levels of attendance since Francis’s election.

President Obama soon joined the bandwagon, stating that he has been “hugely impressed” by the new Pope. Jonathan Freedland, writing for The Guardian, went even further than this, suggesting that Francis had replaced Obama as “the pin-up on every liberal and leftist wall. He is now the world’s clearest voice for change.” As such, Freedland argued that even atheists should be praying for the Pope.

The more the media lavished enthusiastic attention on Pope Francis, however, the more “conservative” and “traditional” Catholics became nervous. Rebecca Goldtsein of the New York Times reports that a number of American conservative Catholics “feel thrown under the bus” by their perception that Francis has weakened the church’s militant opposition to abortion and same-sex relationships. She shows how there is a real fear that the Pope is “muddying Catholic doctrine to appeal to the broadest possible audience.” In an editorial in Italy’s La Republica, Vito Mancuso referred to Francis as “the most cheesy of populists.”

The basic concern such critics raise are expressed by Mario Palmaro and Alessandro Gnocchi in an article entitled, “Why we don’t like this Pope.” Among other concerns, Palmaro and his colleague suggest that the Pope’s approach to the relationship between the church and the wider world is “characterized by an attitude of subservience and dependence, almost as if the Church would have to adjust to the whims of the people.” True to form, Pope Francis responded by personally telephoning Palmaro when he learned the academic was seriously ill, and told him he was praying for him.

It is clear that the Pope is alert to the double-edged nature of his celebrity and stardom, and has sought to deflate the overly sentimental media frenzy. But even after over a year in office, many commentators have remained uncertain how to interpret the man behind the charming public persona. As Paul Vallely has asked, “Is he liberal or conservative – or is he something altogether more unpredictable?”

If the presenting question to date has been “Who really is Francis?” two other related issues have received considerably less direct consideration – the first has to do with Francis’s audience; the second with his style.

How many divisions has the Pope?

What does the debate about the “true” identity of Pope Francis reveal about our contemporary cultural environment? The American theologian Stanley Hauerwas has described the office of the papacy as having to do principally with the nature of the unity of the church: “The person who fulfils the office of the papacy necessarily has to become extremely articulate, for the whole church, to help us locate both our unity and disunities.” The current Pope may not be intentionally seeking to bring into view our dominant cultural divisions, but the “Francis effect” is certainly doing just that.

From American critics of Pope Francis, we hear warnings of a possible “civil war” between so-called progressive Christians and those who are fearful of having their sense of the distinctive message of Christianity dissolved into a very worldly, sentimental, secular social programme. From such a perspective, Francis reiterates the assumption that we find ourselves in the midst of a“Culture War.”

For some British critics, the threat of conflict is internal to the administrative structures of the Vatican itself, where entrenched vested interests, we are told, “have much to lose.” In this rendering, Francis brings to the fore our cynicism about institutions and bureaucracy. Thus far, Francis’s role as Pope has certainly helped the church to recognise its many disunities. What remains to be seen is whether the church will better recognise its unity through his leadership.

The question of the Pope’s relationship to the wider institutional structures of the church raises the question of the strengths and weaknesses of his style of leadership. Here we needn’t restrict ourselves to the ideological battles of the contemporary church, for an Italian philosopher has recently published a book that puts this question in a more general theoretical perspective: is it possible for a charismatic leader to successfully challenge the rigidities of long-standing rules and social orderings – be they those of the Roman Catholic Church, secular moral codes, or established political divisions?

Francis’s style as a “form of life”?

In Giorgio Agamben’s analysis of the emergence of the Christian monastic movement, he explores the relationship between the “form” of life that individuals seek to embody, and the “law” or regulations and obligations that are imposed upon them. In some instances, Agamben shows that the life of monks became very regulated and controlled, as they took quite literally – for example, the biblical text enjoining us to “pray without ceasing.”

But one element of the monastic movement interests Agamben in particular: the Franciscans. For in the life of Francis of Assisi, a radical simplicity is introduced into monasticism. Francis emphasised that the “rule” of his order was simply to “live the Gospel.” The Franciscan monks were asked to make a vow of poverty and live like Jesus, with the implication that it simply was not possible to reduce this way of life to a rigid system of codes and rules. In the rule of St. Francis, therefore, Agamben detects a radical attempt to unify doing and being.

Agamben finds this vision so interesting because he views it as an attempt to establish a form of life that is not shaped primarily by a legalistic system, so that the boundaries of acceptable behaviour are defined, nor by the negative threats of punishment and prohibition, but by a positive commitment to a particular way of living.

For Agamben, this is such a refreshing vision because our contemporary society renders us accustomed to thinking about our lives as shaped by rules and obligations, legal codes and insurance regulations. The Franciscan’s “highest poverty” tried to embody an existence “outside the law.” This is due to the fact that they thought that to try closely to regulate the spirit of “living the Gospel” would undermine the very spirit of the Gospel.

Such an understanding may help us understand the way the first Franciscan Pope has tried to engage with the office of the papacy. Much heralded for trying to live “simply” and for taking the vow of poverty seriously, does the way of life that Pope Francis is seeking to model bear some resemblance to the monasticism goals described by Agamben? If so, this might go some way toward explaining the non-dogmatic spirit behind the Pope’s statements like, “Who am I to judge?”

Agamben’s analysis might also describe the primary distinction between the public persona of Francis – based on symbolic gesture and casual relationships – and that of his immediate predecessor, who was more disposed to the clarification of doctrine and procedure. Does the celebration of the “novelty” and “freshness” of the Pope’s “authentic” style have something to do with an appreciation for what Agamben describes as a longing for human life released from the grip of the law?

The exception that proves the rule?

If Agamben’s work does help us understand the power of Pope Francis’s public persona, might it also illuminate the possible limitations of the same? A brief consideration of Agamben’s analysis of the debate over “ownership” within the Franciscan movement helps bring this into view.

According to this interpretation, the Franciscan vow of poverty challenged the very concept of ownership, which is a key element of the concept of law. As the Franciscans conceived it, this did not necessarily mean that they did not have any access to possessions that they might use; they simply forbid themselves the claim that they “possessed” or “owned” these items. Agamben summarises the key issue he sees in this dynamic as follows: “Franciscanism can be defined … as the attempt to realise a human life and practice absolutely outside the determinations of the law.”

This proved a very difficult ideal, however, for the authorities of the Catholic Church to accept. Someone had to “own” the items that the Franciscans were putting to good use.” For a time, the church allowed the order to suspend their relationship to ownership, by assuming in their place jurisdiction over the property they were using. In this way, however, the Franciscan attempt seamlessly to hold together the concepts of being and doing in their “form of life” had significant indirect results.

For example, the popularity of their way of life granted greater legitimacy to the “form” of the Roman Catholic Church, which could point to the Franciscans as the example of what the larger institutional system stood for. In this way, their exception-to-the-rule only reinforced the order of law and discipline from which their movement had sought to be free.

Agamben’s analysis of this tension focuses on the idea that, in seeking to place themselves in a “state of exception” from the normal requirements of the legal system, the Franciscans reinforced the office of the Roman Catholic institutional system. Moreover, as institutional and political pressure to conform to legal norms continued to build, Franciscan theologians like Bonaventure tried to provide a theoretical justification for the separation of the concepts of use from ownership.

Agamben argues that these more technical definitions of “poverty” effectively drew what was formally beyond the law back into a more formal legal framework. The radicality of the Franciscan movement, in other words, was domesticated. Such a conclusion gains additional support from the historical record, which demonstrates how, as the initially small order grew in prestige and influence, the Roman Curia eventually ruled that the Franciscan separation of ownership from use was no longer permitted.

Habemus Papam

This theoretical analysis offers some perspective on the liberal/conservative divide that has characterised many of the responses to the first year of Francis’s papacy. Ross Douthat’s description of Francis as a “kind of living iconography” is certainly apt – he has captured the world’s attention. Like any icon, however, a mystery is contained within the symbol that remains to be interpreted.

For liberals and the secular media, the freshness and spontaneity of Francis represents a fairer, kinder version of Catholicism, which stands apart from the dogmas, policies and complicated past of the institutional church. For conservatives and traditionalists, the playfulness and warmth raises concern that the depth and distinctiveness of the Catholic tradition might be sacrificed on the altar of popularity. Which version best captures the true significance of Pope Francis? We have a Pope – only, what kind of Pope will he turn out to be?

A liberal cynic might take from Agamben’s analysis the view that the charismatic style of Pope Francis is bound to be re-absorbed into the legalistic procedures of the institutional bureaucracy. A cynical conservative might conclude that Francis’s relative inaction and (until very recently) silence regarding the abuse of children by minors is symptomatic of a naive assumption that personal warmth and positive impressions make the hard work of institutional negotiation and discipline unnecessary.

Either way, both positions exhibit an interpretation of the “icon” of Pope Francis as read through the paradigm of Agamben’s St. Francis, and both assume that this Pope’s attempt to hold together a seamless “form of life” will share the same basic fate as his namesake.

In this cynical age, we had all best try to resist the temptations of cynicism, and continue to wish the Pope and his efforts only the very best. One cannot help but wonder, however, what Francis himself makes of it all. At the conclusion of Moretti’s film Habemus Papam, Cardinal Melville, having been subjected to psychotherapy and constant institutional pressure, and after deep personal self-examination, finally presents himself to the crowd awaiting the announcement of a new Pope in St. Peter’s square. He tells them:

“In this moment the Church needs a guide who has the strength to bring great changes, who seeks an encounter with all, who has, for all, love and understanding. I ask the Lord’s forgiveness for what I am about to do … In these days I’ve thought very much about you and I realize I am not able to bear the role entrusted to me. I feel I am among those who cannot lead but who must be led … The guide that you need is not me. I can’t be the one.”

Pope Francis has clearly resisted the temptation that Melville succumbed to. So the question his papacy presents to our conflicted churches with is not, “Do we have a Pope” or “Does he have the courage to lead” but rather, “Are we willing to allow ourselves to be led?” How we answer this question will have much to do with determining what the “icon” of Francis will come to signify.

Christopher Craig Brittain is Senior Lecturer in Practical Theology in the School of Divinity, History and Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen. He is the author of Religion at Ground Zero: Theological Responses to Times of Crisis.

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